Asteron Centre

Проект

Rawlplug’s concrete screw anchors are subject to a certification testing process, allowing them to be used in seismic hazard zones. One example of their use is the refurbishment of the Asteron Centre tower in New Zealand’s capital city.

The 16-storey glazed tower in downtown Wellington is part of the Asteron Centre, which, at the time of its opening back in 2010, was the largest single office building in the city, with 48,000 square metres of floor space. However, in 2021, the building was considered unsafe and not up to the latest construction standards, partly also as a result of the damage caused by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Kaikōura in 2016.

The Kaikōura incident was not surprising, as New Zealand is one of the areas with the strongest seismic activity. This was proven, for instance, by the recent Christchurch earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 (7.1 and 6.3 on the Richter scale), and the Wellington earthquakes in 2013 and 2014 (6.5 and 6.2 on the Richter scale, respectively). They led to many tall buildings in the capital being declared unfit for use due to lack of protection against the force of tremors. They were decommissioned, and their owners were faced with the need to have them refurbished, which would involve construction changes aimed at guaranteeing structural integrity and user safety.

To restore the Asteron Centre to useful condition, a technologically innovative process was implemented to fix steel support beams to the central lift shaft on each of the 16 floors. The next step consisted in our engineers developing a way of fixing a number of 6 mm thick steel plates to the concrete substrate around the core of the building, also on each floor. This was carried out using Rawlplug’s products: over 180,000 R-LX-CS-ZF countersunk concrete screw anchors (for horizontal fixing) and R-LX-HF-ZF threaded concrete screw anchors (for vertical fixing). The countersunk screw anchors made it possible to install the steel plates completely flush with the substrate and therefore without protruding parts, which facilitated further finishing works. The result is an additional steel collar reinforcing the whole tower, a solution combining flexibility and structural rigidity, capable of resisting the destructive shocks.

This was not the first investment using Rawlplug’s products in earthquake-prone areas. Last July, our research in the field resulted in the inclusion of Rawlplug Italia in the ranks of ISI Ingegneria Sismica Italiana, a group of reputable companies working together to develop innovative seismic risk management solutions.